Power in the Pulpit | Matthew 1

Intro: Thank you Leighton for leading us tonight. If you have your bible’s with you tonight, could you turn to Matthew 1. This semester we are going to begin what will be a long journey through the book of Matthew. We are going to go through Matthew for however long it takes to get through it. In fact, some of you may graduate high school before we finish it. But I thought it was important for us to spend time together studying the life of Jesus. The book of Matthew is interesting. There has been much debate about when it was written. Was it the first gospel written or was it written after Mark and perhaps even John? But there are several things that have not been debated. Church tradition has always supported the belief that the book was written my the disciple Matthew, also called Levi. Matthew was a tax collector who left his post to go become one of Jesus’ disciples. The internal evidence found in the book also suggests that Matthew wrote the book to Jewish people to show that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah that God had promised in the OT. But he wasn’t just for the Jewish people. He was the savior for all people. In fact, that is the firs thing we will see tonight. Jesus is the promised messiah whose miraculous birth was supported by a righteous man. Tonight we are not going to stand like we usually do because we are going to break this up some. But please read with me starting with verse 1.

Matthew 1:1-17.

Verse 1

Son of David, why that’s important

Son of Abraham

Father of Jews

The one through whom whole world would be blessed

Verses 2-17

Three groups of 13 with David in the middle.

Abraham to David to exile exile to Christ

Four women

The effort gone through to not list Joseph as the father

Transition

Matthew 1:18-19.

Verse 18

Verse 19

Transition

Matthew 1:20-24.

Vereses 20-22

Explain prophecies of 23

Veres 24-25

Joseph’s obedience

Conclusion: There is something really interesting that exists in this passage. It’s that there is a clear moment that Joseph comes to know that Jesus is the one that would save people from their sins. This realization leads Joseph to respond in obedience to what God was calling him to do. The knowledge of who Christ is demands a response. I think that there are very few people in this room tonight that would say that they do not believe that Jesus is the savior of the world. I imagine there are very few people in here that would say they don’t believe Jesus can save them from their sins. But the true test of that belief is in our response. Joseph responded by going against the conventional wisdom and taking Mary as his wife. It’s through this we see he really believed. What about you? Have you believed to the point of response? Maybe you do believe but you have not taken the step of obedience of surrendering your life to Christ. Maybe tonight is that night. I’m going to be at the front. Come pull me to the side, I would love to pray with you or have one of our church leaders talk with and pray for you. Come find me after if you would rather. But if you believe Jesus is the savior of the world, don’t delay the response.